Forum; Turkish Filmmaker Halit Refig

You This is Olive Graham for Forum. This week a discussion of film in Turkey. In recent years, a rivalry of television and a rise of video audiences made great fundamental changes in the structure of film industry in Turkey. Turkish filmmaker Halih Rafi on Forum. From the Center for Telecommunication Services, the University of Texas at Austin,

welcomed a forum I'm Olive Graham. In recent years, a rivalry of television and a rise of video audiences made great fundamental changes in the structure of film industry in Turkey. Turkish filmmaker Halih Rafi. Our guest today on Forum provides us with a vision of what it is like to create films in the Middle East. Halih Rafi is one of Turkey's most prominent filmmakers. His career covers 30 years during which time he has created commercial features and documentaries and TV serials and educational films. Included among his films that were screened at the University of Texas at Austin was The Forbidden Love. Before discussing that film in detail, Mr. Rafi describes the impact of video on the Turkish film industry.

Mr. Rafi. Every home now, of course, as a television set, and almost all middle-class families have their video sets. And people who were not watching movies in film theaters, the whole family is now a film viewer, film audiences themselves, but at home mostly. So this is a great structural change. For this reason, now films in last two years are mostly financed by video-oriented companies. As you know, last 10-15 years there have been very troublesome in Middle East. There are many wars, regional wars such as the war between Arab countries, Egypt and Israel.

The war between Iran and Iraq, the internal troubles in Lebanon, the Cyprus crisis, they all have affected the cultural relations in Middle Eastern countries. So with those political and military troubles in Middle East, Turkey does not have the old neighboring markets. But then there is another strong market for Turkish films that is Germany because of over 2 million guest workers, guest Turkish workers in Germany and other European industrialized countries. Except those examples, Turkish films are rarely shown in foreign countries. And that depends only to the special merits of some certain specific films.

Do you have a star system that a lot of it wants to do? Yes. Well, the star system in Turkey has had the spread of Turkish films in the home market, because mostly Turkish film audiences used to go to films not because of the value of the stories or the artistic merits or the creativity of the director, but the star images was the main force to draw audiences to cinemas. And many years the films were being made according to the names of stars, that is to say. If a producer had acquired a star to act in one of the films, such kind of films were able to be pre-sold.

So there was no chance of losing money if you acquired certain stars to act in your films. And to make films without such security stars was a risk and a gamble, and a kind of gamble which few were to win. For this reason, many years stars were real dictators, the rulers of the Turkish film industry, more than even the producers, the finances themselves. But with the spread of television, and in recent years, as I mentioned earlier, the spread of video viewing, star system is not as strong as before. And also, in recent years, there is concussions, especially in the younger public.

The number is not very powerful to change the whole system, but there is an interest in the younger generation to evaluate the films not according to the stars that they have, but to the dramatic qualities they have. And this is another optimistic point that has come into reality in recent years. Film audiences here are very used to certain working genres, the Western companies, horror films and so on. What kinds of genres do Turkish films have?

Well, we used to have, I'm going to say used to have, because at this moment that we are talking, Turkish filmmaking is in a changing period. Well, it is a changing period, the old forms, old genres have lost their old power, but they are not replaced by other patterns at yet. But talking about the genres, the type of films that was popular in Turkish cinema, we can make some categories. The first category was of course, like in the United States, films destined for male audiences, that is to say films with heroes, male heroes, action, violence, adventure, vengeance, themes like this. Then there was the other category, destined to female audiences.

Of course, they were most emotional stories with feminine heroines, Melodramas, sentimental stories, love stories, family dramas. Then there were comedies which were destined mostly to children and family. Of course, the musical films, that was also destined to the whole family. But now, although those categories did not altogether disappeared, I must say that at the present moment that we are talking, they don't keep their former categorical power. There is a change now, especially last two, three years, observed. A change that films without categories, films that you cannot put into any category, they are few in the numbers of course, but getting more attention.

Cultural changes. That's right. Cultural changes and changes in the type of media. There, when you had people only going to cinemas, those cinemas had to make a selection of their audiences. But now, with video cassettes, with television, everybody is a film viewer. So, you can find an audience disregarding the number for every type of film. Do they have a rating system that tells you just how many people may be viewing your films at any given time?

Well, not as perfect as how you can do it in the United States. But of course, we have also some ratings for social communications. Without those, no one could decide what to do. Of course, no one is trying to move in the darkness. But I must say that the ratings are not as perfect as you have in this country. Of course, if you don't have the same kind of commercial television, maybe you don't need those exact numbers as well. But I'm sure, and that is a common opinion, that although television is at the moment of this conversation is a state monopoly in Turkey, there is a great tendency that in few years time, private sector television will also start to operate. Tell me some specifics about your production career, some titles, some subjects. What sorts of genres, for instance, have you produced or directed?

Essentially, I'm a professional filmmaker. That is to say, most of the work I have done by number was the work I was commissioned. I was ordered to make. Among those works, maybe one sixth of it was my own initiative. Well, if I have opportunity, which is not very frequent, in that case, to if I have opportunity to make my own films, those are mostly subjects to show the change, the social, the cultural change in Turkey. Within a certain historical perspective, and the effect of this change upon certain individuals of the society who carries the drama of the change,

and the film, which is going to be shown here today at five o'clock, is an example to this. Although it is not my original idea, it is based on a novel, which is considered to be one of the first important successful films. What date is it? The date of the novel is 1899, publishing date is 1899, and the novel itself tells a story of a Turkish family, an upper-class family, at the turn of the century, in a critical period. And the changes, and although it was written before the Turkish Republic, at the Ottoman times, the writer of the novel, as every good artist, was successful to sense the future.

For this reason, in this film, I mean, basically, in the novel, it showed the morals of family, from classical Islamic Ottoman family, a change into modern 20th century universal family system. And the relations, especially male and female relations, in a changing process. So I think I believed in this novel that it was a perfect, very good description of a certain part of Turkish society, in that changing period, in a change, in a social change, a change which is inescapable, a change which is indispensable. Well, it is easy to change the material life. You can change your chair, you can change your radio, your car.

But the difficult thing is to change the feelings, the emotions. So the drama is, you know, with the emotions that, despite the changing environment, the emotions are hard to change. They are basically, you know, continuing. So that makes a dramatic content. Does this mean that there's no attention paid to the harder differences, like economic pressures that create these changes? Well, talking about this particular film, the family described in this film does not necessarily have any economical problems. The family is well to the family. But there would be some realities with this. Yes, but there, there, the economical change is not the everyday economy, but the macro economy of a country, I mean, a country which needs support of foreign economies.

Which comes into a situation that cannot, is not enough for itself. So this is a macro problem. Did you do the screenplay for this? Yes. Are there any problems inherent in trying to lift a story of this emotional complexity from the page to the screen? Well, this is, I don't know if it's an easy question for me to answer. It is a question better be answered by those who have read the novel and seen the film. But now as I am the person to answer this question, I would say that this novel was considered to be written with a heavy style, heavy prose style, which was not easy to understand for today's readers in Turkey.

So I was confronted with a problem of making a heavy prose literal work of art into a moving dramatic visual art. Well, I must say looking back to the facts, I think I have succeeded it, because although the novel was appreciated only by those who were very well read in classical Turkish, and was not read by modern contemporary readers, because of the linguistic language problems, despite this, the film, which was very close to essential structure of the novel,

was extremely popular on television, on all levels of the audiences. And it was accepted to be one of the best adaptations of a classical novel into film. And it became very popular with the modern public. So I think the problems of transferring a classical piece of literature into a modern entertaining film media was succeeded in that case. Let us say at least for Turkey. I don't know what a non-Turkish audience will react to film. I must say I am really curious about it, and expecting to see the results.

I think we would probably call a film like this a period piece. That's right. I would agree with this. Yes, well, I must say that when I was making this film, I had a certain model in front of me. That was David Linz, Metis Director, David Linz, work. He did it with Charles Dickens' novels, like great expectations and Oliver Twist. He was my only concrete model in working classical novel into film. Well, as you were describing the time period, I was thinking in the back of my mind to us that would be Victorian, a Victorian novel. That's right. But it is the same time. That's the Victorian times. But you wouldn't call it Victorian in Turkey. What did you call it there? We call it Ablamid time, which is as important for Turkey as Victorian times are important to British people.

Ablamid II had a long time of ruling, 33 years. His period is the last distinctive part of Ottoman history. At this time, he was an autocratic ruler. He was a strong monarch, one of the strongest monarchs that Ottomans have ever seen. So he was supposedly to be against all the renewal moments in Turkey. The young Turk moment, which has become famous in European literature, was at this time. The young Turk moment was against his rule. So he was accepted, considered by young Turks. Young Turks were people who were trying to bring political liberty to Turkey.

Also, they were after modernization in Turkey's social life. So their main target was Ablamid II. He was accepted, considered by young Turks, as the main force to block the way of modernization, renewal in Turkey. But the history shows us that this is not the absolute truth. It is true only partially. Historically, we see that most of the institutions, modern institutions, especially in education, in social welfare were works of his time. So this period, Ablamid II's period, is an interesting, important period, maybe not as glorious as Victorian period was to British, but not less important to Turks in the respect of politics and social changes.

And who is the author for bin love? He is called Khalid Ziyah Ushakligir. And was he an important novelist? Yes, he is considered to be the father of Turkish novels. And he sequels then involved. He must have had a number of them. He had written several novels, but three of his novels have been landmarks in Turkish literature, especially in novel writing. And this one, as you may know, the forbidden now is the middle one. Blue and black and broken lives are the other important novels of him. Khalid Ziyah came from a very well-known family. He was very much enlightened man. He was also, for some time, in the palace, the chancellor, the palace minister of the Sultan, not Ablamid, but his successor.

So he came from a very well-known, good family, spoke several languages, new French literature very well. And although he was a very keen observer of Turkish life, especially the life around himself, he had a perfect use of technique of novel, especially on French model. I would consider this novel forbidden now a kind of distant relative of Madame Bovary.

He's writing Reminds One, very much of Gustav Flauber's, his involvement with details. Describe technically what this film looks like, what do we see? That was a very expensive film for standards of Turkey, especially at the time it was made. A private company wouldn't be able to do it. That is made by state, without any commercial aims, without any commercial expectations. Such a film at that time, and now at the time of this conversation, cannot be produced by private producers, because that would not be considered a good commercial attempt, because it's too expensive. And you cannot bring back the money in that case in Turkey.

So it was made for state television, and state television fundamentally was based on the idea of national education. The Turkish television is not like television companies in the United States, financial and commercial institutions. It is a state institution, it has the principle aim of national education. So this film was produced within this mentality, within this approach, and there was utmost care in details, such as the locations, the sets, the costumes, the hairdressing. Everything had to be done according to perfect periods, realities. So it's an interesting film from this respect also.

Haleed Rafi's visit to the campus of the University of Texas at Austin was sponsored by the Center for Middle East Studies. If you have a comment or wish to purchase a cassette copy of this program, write to Forum, the Center for Telecommunication Services, the University of Texas at Austin, 78712. This week our technical producer is Cliff Hargrove, our production assistant is Christine Drawer, I'm your producer and host Olive Graham. Forum is produced and distributed by the Center for Telecommunication Services, the University of Texas at Austin, and is not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Texas at Austin or this station.

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